Ever wondered how to sun dry a tomato? I mean, the flavor of sun-dried tomatoes is exquisitely intense, wonderfully versatile–and I learned–the perfect addition to any raw diet. It makes an awesome base for uncooked tomato sauce.

But I digress. Personally I never wondered about sun-dried tomatoes and how they were created. I figured the name said it all, right? I imagined them splayed out across specialty terra-cotta baking stones in Italy or California, sunning until they reached crispy, crunchy chewy perfection (depending on how you like them!).

It wasn’t until I witnessed Mother Nature’s first sun-dried tomatoes in my garden last spring that it dawned on me. Actually, it was the scorch of summer and my lack of attention that did it, not to mention the horrid red paper experiment, but who’s keeping tabs? These gorgeous Romas dried on the vine last spring and did so again this spring, all by themselves. Don’t you love an independent vegetable?

Nothing I like better than a vegetable that will grow itself or a child that will do his or her own laundry. It’s heaven! But seriously, are these not feats to be coveted? At least respected, admired? In my house they are and when my tomatoes began to sun dry themselves well, I celebrated. Hip-hip-hooray! We have sun-dried tomatoes!

For all of you cringing right now thinking, please no, tell me you didn’t actually eat those rotten things. Rest assured, I didn’t. Who knows what may have tainted those shriveled beauties? Not me and I don’t eat anything from my garden without full certainty of its “wholesome goodness” prior to ingestion. I have kids watching my every move. Never know which “moves” they may wish to emulate and trust me–rushing them to the ER is not on my list of things to do!

So how does one sun-dry tomatoes?

Easy. Same way you dry those herbs in your garden–set the oven to low (150-200) and bake them for about 4-5 hours, depending on the size of your tomatoes and the heat strength of your oven. Cut them into quarters and push the seeds out (or not).

These are a mix of Roma style and regular. (Is there such a thing as regular tomatoes?) Next, spread them across a baking sheet. I used this vented one for more even “drying.”

At this point, your best course of action is to monitor them throughout the process, turning when necessary. If this seems like too much work, you can always lay them out in the sunshine for a hot couple of days. Mother Nature does know what she’s doing!

After about 4 hours, my small batch was ready; crispy-crunchy-ready.

I imagine if I immerse these in olive oil they’ll return to a more palatable texture (I like mine chewy), but these would still be great as a salad sprinkle. The raw diet recipes we used during our challenge called for soaking the sun-dried tomatoes in water prior to use. Good idea. Tasty, toasty and easy, you won’t want to stop here. Why not “sun-dry” green peppers? Would make for a nice intense flavor addition to any salad.

And you can use this same process for making red pepper flakes, the kind you love to sprinkle over pizza. Oh yes, simply lay them out whole (I used parchment paper so as not to lose any of the spicy seeds) and then slide them into the oven.

Once dry and crispy, pull them out, break off the stems, then gently crush until you have a pile of…

Your very own flakes of red pepper! Drying herbs works much the same way so get moving and put those babies to work in the kitchen! (In my house, that means the kids. :))

6 Comments

Those indeed look yummy. I did peppers before but never tomatoes. I have used my dehydrator this summer, too hot for me to have the oven going. I haved dehydrated figs, and tryed sweet potatoes this week, was working on doggie treats and came across that idea. Dogs love sweet potatoe chews. They were pretty tasty sprinkled with a little cinnamon before tossing into the dehydrator.